Recently a client of mine – a CIO of a federal government organisation told me – the power of my suggestion to him, to develop a daily habit of using his phone to video record himself delivering a short message, and then immediately watching the playback – can’t be over-estimated. Part of the power of the recording habit, he said, was the ability to get an objective view of himself. In a recent post, I had shared specific steps for daily video recording and playback. After hearing my client’s feedback, it seemed incumbent on me to share the steps again – so you too, can experience the power of the recording habit. Here are the steps to take: #1 Before you start your workday tomorrow, in a private setting, with your phone video recorder or phone voice recorder, record what you’ll do for the day. #2 Package your thoughts in an Open, Middle, Close format. Open: ‘Let me share what I’ll do today . . . Middle: I’ll do x, y, z and then p, q and r. . . Close:  . . . so that’s what I’ll do today’ Aim for about 50 seconds maximum recording time. #3 Immediately after the making the recording, watch/listen to it and score yourself on how articulate/inarticulate you were. Note any distracting facial expressions and body movements, dullness in your voice, filler words/lack of fillers, mispronunciations – as well, note the energy and certainty you projected through your face, body language and gesturing; how crisp your pronunciation was. #4 Give yourself an immediate ‘reward’ after listening to the recording (a tick on a system card, a pat on the back, a fist pump etc). By doing this drill, over time, you’ll automatically move along the path to becoming more articulate.

Own the Conversation

Please trial the above steps for the next seven workdays to see how it pays-off for you. One way to make it easier to achieve this, is to make a colour coded entry in your calendar for the drill. Let me know how effective the steps have been for you. ++++++ Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay